


Breathes salvation back into me

by edourado



Series: Hell's Kitchen Chronicles [20]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hell's Kitchen Cronicles, Romance, Tumblr Prompt, edourado, karedevil - Freeform, sick matt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 17:01:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7114555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edourado/pseuds/edourado
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr prompt: #10: "I don't know what I did to deserve you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathes salvation back into me

**Author's Note:**

> Because I think they need some peace, even when someone's sick

Karen sighed, mentally kicking herself. Of all the nights someone could mug her, they chose the one she did not have her pepper spray. Or her gun.

“Come on, now, blondie, nice and easy.”

From the corner of her eye, she could see a police car parked in front of a diner on the other side of the street, out of the thug’s view. She could scream, maybe try to run for it. She really didn’t feel like losing her things, possibly worse.

She was preparing to run when there was a thudding noise behind the man pointing the knife at her.

“Hey.”

When the man turned around, there was Daredevil, landing a punch on him and Karen sighed, relieved.

A few seconds later, while she looked at the police car, to see if they had a visual of what was going on, the man was falling to the floor, unconscious.

She turned her face to Matt, who breathed a little hard.

“My hero”, she smiled and he returned it, supporting a hand on a wall, catching his breath. “You were not following me, were you?”

“Who, me?” he asked, and she always found it so attractive that she could only see his jaw when he was dressed like that. “Of course not.”

“Catholics make terrible liars.”

He smiled again and she took a step closer to him.

“You ok?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you.”

Noticing he was still a little short of breath, she frowned. It was unusual for him to get so winded like this. Raising her hand, she touched his face.

“Oh my God, M-” she almost said his name. “You’re burning up!” she whispered.

He shook his head, taking his hand from the wall, standing straight.

“I’m fine, it’s nothing.”

She looked at him.

“How long have you been feeling like this?”

“It’s just a cold, I’m fine.”

“Answer the question, please.”

He cleared his throat.

“I don’t know. Couple days, maybe?”

“You should not be outside.”

“Karen, it’s nothing, I-”

“Look. Don’t piss me off, ok? I had a day.”

He stopped talking and she saw him trying to control a smile.

“Ok, sorry.”

“Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re gonna go home.”

“No, you know I can’t do that, I-”

“I don’t care. The Kitchen can survive one night without you. Now shut up and do as I say”, she said, inspecting the man lying on the ground.

“So bossy”, he flirted and she didn’t know if it was sad or adorable, because he sniffed right after.

“Go home. I’ll call those cops to take care of this prince right here and then I’ll be right over.”

He jutted his chin a little, taking a step closer to her.

“Are you gonna take care of me or something?”

“Or something. Just get home, I’ll be right there. Ok?

He stood there a little and she could swear he was looking at her. Like, seeing her.

“Ok.”

“Matt”, she whispered, impossibly low, trying to convey some threat in her voice. “If I get to your apartment and you’re not there, I swear to God you’re not gonna hear from me again so soon.”

He laughed.

“I’ll be there!”

“You better. Go.”

“But don’t take too long, or I’ll worry.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Reluctantly, he turned around and climbed fences and walls like nobody she knew would ever be able to do. She took a deep breath to push away that warm feeling she had every time she saw him doing something like that and walked to the police car.

“Officers?”

.:.

Maybe this was a good idea, coming home.

He was glad he had gone out, otherwise Karen would have been mugged. But he was feeling like shit. His back hurt, his head hurt, he was either too cold or too hot (which made showering a challenge), he was in a mood.

Karen had been like a light. The first time he had smiled in two days.

He was jus tout of the shower when she knocked on the door. He breathed, relieved nothing had stopped her. While he walked, he smelled soup.

Opening the door, he smiled at her.

“Hi.”

“Hey. How are you feeling?”

He shrugged, stepping aside to let her in.

“Not my best day.”

She took her coat off and he moved his head, frowning when the usual smell of her hit him very faintly.

“I got you some soup. Have you been eating?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you been eating well?”

He scratched the back of his head, the muscles on his side complaining the movement.

“Great. Go lie down, I’ll bring it over in a minute.”

She sat by him on his bed while he ate, she ran a hand on his hair, combing it back, the back of her hand testing the temperature on his forehead from time to time. When he was done, she took the empty bowl of soup to the kitchen, coming back with a blueberry muffin and thermometer, which she stuck in his mouth before she let him eat.

He chuckled around the device and could tell she was smiling, sitting there on the edge of his bed.

“101º. Too high.” she sighed and looked at him. “I think I’ll call a doctor.”

He groaned, lying down and turning on his stomach.

“I just need to rest. I’ll be better tomorrow”, he said against his pillow. “Can I have my muffin?”

She placed it in his hand and got up.

“I’ll give it two hours. If your fever isn’t down by then, I’ll call a doctor.”

It wasn’t. She got up to call the doctor, but he caught her hand, before she was fully up, arguing that it was flu season, that he hadn’t taken his shot, his symptoms were not that alarming, he had some meds in his cabinet.

“Matt, with the amount of stress that your body goes through, I’m worried this could be more serious”, she said.

“Listen. I promise you that if by tomorrow morning I’m not better, I’ll even let you take me to the hospital. But not for now. It’s probably just the flu. I just need to rest a while.”

She looked at him and he could almost hear the cogs in her head working.

“Fine”, she said, after a while. “Where are those pills?”

When she came back with them and a glass of water, Matt rested his head on the headboard.

“You’ll have to stay here, though”, he said. “To check on my fever.”

“Hmm. Yeah”, she put her hair up. “I’ll miss my date.”

His brows shot up.

“Y- you have a date tonight?”

She nodded, getting his empty glass from his hand.

“Yep.”

“With whom?”

“Nick.”

“Nick?” She nodded. “Who’s Nick?”

“He is the owner of a restaurant in SoHo.”

“Oh”, he said, adjusting himself against his pillows. “How pretentious.”

“Says the suma cum laude lawyer from Columbia.”

He sighed.

“I hate him.”

Karen laughed, turning around and exiting the room.

“So you’ll stay?” he called after her.

“Yes, Matt, I’ll stay.”

He smiled. Well, at least this flu had ruined her date, so it wasn’t a complete inconvenience.

.:.

Karen looked at the sleeping face of Matt Murdock. It was not an easy task to get him to sleep. He was tired, it was clear, but he said, and she should have guessed, that it was too loud outside and his head hurt.

So she sat by his side on the bed, talking to him, using the softest voice she could muster, to at least try and distract him to what was going on outside. God forbid he heard something urgent and decided he needed to go out again.

So she told him about Nick. How she had met him during lunch after she finished an interview in an office in front of his restaurant. She told him he was blonde, like her, funny and charming and, yes, maybe a little bit pretentious, trying not to laugh every time he scoffed, pointing out “obvious” character flaws.

“He’s very handsome, Matt”, she argued.

“So what? Foggy says I am, too.”

She laughed loudly at that, regretting it immediately, because she was supposed to be getting him relaxed enough to fall asleep.

“He does?”

“Sometimes. Don’t you agree with him?”

She looked at him, lying there with his cheek pressed against a pillow and she breathed out a sigh, testing his temperature again just as an excuse to touch him.

“Yes, I do.”

He told her to call him and cancel, because he wanted to hear his voice. She did, being a little bit extra sweet on purpose, asking for a rain check she did not intend to collect.

“He sounds like an asshole, Karen.”

“He does not, stop it.”

They talked about Nick for a while longer, he attempted to flirt with her some more, she read him a take out menu, asking for suggestions on what she should order for herself.

He finally fell asleep while she was on the phone.

“Listen”, she whispered stepping into the living room to avoid waking him up. “Have your delivery boy text me when he gets here, or something. Do not ring the bell on any circumstances. It’s broken, if you ring it, it’ll go on forever and I will not pay you.”

She went down the stairs and got her food from the front door of the building when it arrived, relieved to see Matt still asleep when she came back.

After she was done with her food, she took the quietest shower of her life, stepping outside and getting into one of his sweatpants and t shirts, using the reflection of herself on his bedroom window as a mirror to brush her hair.

When she lied down next to him on the bed, she tested the temperature again. She couldn’t tell with just with her hand on his forehead, and she was not about to wake him and stick the thermometer in his mouth again, but he did feel a little cooler.

When she settled on her back, she felt his hand slide and land on her belly, on top of her own.

“Thank you for being here”, he whispered. “I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”

She caressed his fingers with hers, turning her head to look at him, who had fallen asleep again.

He had been such an idiot this past year. But he had also saved her many times. It’s about time she returned the favor.


End file.
